


Space Sickness

by lornesgoldenhair



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:04:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6134586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lornesgoldenhair/pseuds/lornesgoldenhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Hell Bent, but before the Husbands of River Song which doesn’t happen after this story! The Doctor contracts a mystery virus causing him agonising pain, confusion and sensory alteration. He is in desperate need of advanced Time Lord medicine but he’s travelling alone with no-one but the TARDIS to help him. Prohibited from taking him back to Gallifrey she does the next best thing and contacts the nearest Gallifreyan spacecraft, another TARDIS close by. A TARDIS piloted by an old forgotten friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
Something wrong… something…. Can’t think….

  
The Doctor staggered along the corridor to the console room half covering his eyes with one hand, the other outstretched to protect him if he bumped against the walls. He was unsteady, his head bursting with pain, his hearing and vision distorted. Images whirled and deceived him while sound echoed and mocked, unknown voices calling him. Around him the Cloister bell was ringing deep and sonorous and the lights moved in waves, flashing red in the darkness.  
He stumbled and tripped, catching himself against the psychic interface, gripping onto it for dear life while the pain behind his eyes escalated and burned paths through his mind. Every limb followed in flame, hot nails tearing through his skin, down to his fingertips, across his chest. His breath caught and he slumped to the floor, hands searching the console desperately for leverage.

  
Need… help…

  
This would never happen if he had a companion. River had been right, never travel alone Doctor, and he hadn’t, he had travelled with someone for years, but they were now gone; an empty place in his head left behind.  
He had to get help somehow. On a planet or a ship. He had long since disabled the TARDIS automatic homing device knowing it would take him straight to Gallifrey now that the planet had re-emerged from the pocket universe. He had no wish to go there, no matter how desperate he felt. He could feel his concerned ship protesting against his stubbornness as his fingers slipped into the interface and he thought as hard as he could about futuristic hospitals. If he would just let her take him back to…  
‘No! Anywhere but there… anywhere…’ he panted, the image of the Citadel in his mind. ‘There has to be somewhere else…’  
Somewhere else that knew about Time Lord medicine. Not that likely was it? He felt her frustration mount with him but she could not override her programming.  
‘Somewhere else…. There has to be…ah!’ The Doctor’s hands came away from the interface and the metal floor of the room came to meet him with a thump, cold against his cheek. It offered little relief from the pain. Now every nerve in him burned. Maybe it was too late, maybe whatever this was had done the damage, maybe he was dying… he needed medicine now, it couldn’t wait.  
He heard the engines surge suddenly around him and the ship jerk hard as if she had impulsively, furiously decided to give him what he needed after all. He felt the odd combination of her fear and her sense of responsibility driving her to find him help and as darkness grew around him he had no choice but to put his faith in her.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

  
Where did you take me to, old girl?

  
No more Cloister bell. The silence filtered slowly into his consciousness, a place normally filled with the ghosts of memories and tangled thoughts. This silence was peace itself, light like snow and just as white, he followed its path through his mind and down his spine, seeping left and right along peripheral nerves, easing the remnants of pain and wrapping him softly in its presence.  
Maybe I’m dead?  
He tried to open his eyes but as yet his body wouldn’t follow commands so instead he tried to focus on what he could feel. Softness at his back, under his head, the feel of something similar over his torso but leaving his face and neck exposed. A very slight discomfort in one arm alerted him to the presence of something more solid, a restraint? An intravenous drip? Something unnatural anyway, something which might represent treatment.  
So, not dead, being treated. That was good. A hospital? His TARDIS had taken him somewhere where he could be helped and it seemed to be working, the pain under control. He tried again to move, managed to wriggle against the softness around him. Sheets he surmised. He could smell them, a light clean fragrance, oddly familiar. His eyes opened a crack, squinted.  
Too bright. Painful.  
‘Hey…’ a voice to his right, the sound of someone pushing back a chair, ‘you’re ok, but you might want to keep your eyes shut a while longer, they’ll be sensitive.’  
He wriggled slightly again, opened his mouth to reply but his query got stuck in his throat. He swallowed, tried again.  
‘Same with the speaking thing,’ the voice explained to him gently, ‘It’ll come, but right now you’re too weak. You need time… don’t worry, there’s plenty of that, you’re quite safe.’  
He felt his muscles protest at his wriggling and fell still. He really was weak and he would just have to hope his TARDIS had brought him to people he could trust. The possibility he couldn’t made him feel horribly vulnerable. He wished he could see where he was at least, wished he could drive back some of the aching fatigue which was washing over him. His breathing was becoming slow and heavy, his head light. He had to stay awake, he had to work out where he was. He tried to breath in deeper, bite down on his tongue to dismiss the exhaustion but it was closing in on him like a tidal wave. He couldn’t move, couldn’t fight off sleep. A small sphere of panic formed in his throat.  
Then a rustle and the owner of the voice was closer now, adjusting his sheets, pulling them up to his chin. Hands lingered a moment over his upper arms, patted him gently.  
‘Sleep now,’ the voice said, ‘I know you’re not a fan of it, but you need to. It’s ok, it’s part of the illness, it’ll get better, but you just need to go with it right now.’  
He managed to make a low moan in protest. One hand closed over his arm.  
‘Ok, I’ll tell you basics but then you must sleep,’ the voice said and he felt a weight beside him on what he assumed was the bed. He grunted approval. ‘It’s like a sleeping sickness,’ the explanation came, ‘it’s a rare virus that attacks the nervous system. When you arrived here in your TARDIS you were already unconscious but I expect before that you were in a great deal of pain, that your hearing, touch and other senses were distorted. It would have come over you quite suddenly. One moment you would think you just had a space flu the next….’  
He moaned, the description was accurate. Space flu. Where had he heard something like that before? Space…not flu… space something….  
‘It must have been agonising,’ the sympathetic voice continued. He felt a thumb rubbing at his bicep soothingly. ‘You’re lucky you got here in time. From what we’ve read about it once you reach the point of unconsciousness a lot of damage has already been done; anymore and…’ it stopped, took a moment, ‘well its fine, it’s fine because we found you…’ the voice sounded relieved, like it was reassuring itself more than him.  
‘Have you mentioned I’m basically a linguistic genius and worked out what was going on from that ancient old medical text?’ a second voice interrupted, ‘I told you learning Gallifreyan was worth all the hassle. Hell of a language though, all those circles…. Hey is he awake?’  
‘Yes… he’s fading in and out a bit I think, he’s woken up a few times but I’m not sure he remembers that.’  
‘Maybe he just doesn’t remember you?’ voice two speculated. ‘Either way his abilities to lay down memories will be affected by the virus. All those nerve cells and neurons are still smarting from it, look I think he’s passed out again, probably best thing for him right now.’  
‘It must have been so painful,’ voice one said with compassion. The quality of it sounded warped and the Doctor fought to listen on. He felt as though he was at the bottom of a well complete with echoes and ricochets.  
‘I’m sure it was,’ voice two agreed, ‘But he is on the mend, he is, so please don’t do the thing with the eyes.’  
‘I know I’m sorry, I just…. I’m struggling with this whole thing.’  
‘It’s hard, you didn’t think you’d ever see him again… it’s been so long….’  
‘It’s not that… at least I don’t think it’s that,’ voice one explained. ‘I think we were always going to run into each other eventually. It’s more when he does wake up after all this time…’ The Doctor felt the hand on his arm lift and move away from him and as though a rope had been severed he felt himself falling, darkness rushing from all around, exhaustion pouring over him. He tried to fight it but it mocked him mercilessly, pulling him further and further from the pleasant voice above. ‘When he does wake up,’ it was saying, ‘He still won’t know who I am.’

XXXXXXXXX

  
There had been a conversation. He could remember that. He had some sort of space sleeping sickness according to the voice. And there was another voice too, a second voice which was very familiar, but the first voice was kinder. It had comforted him and then there’d been a conversation. Another one. One he couldn’t place.  
He frowned and tried to force his thoughts down his still burning neurons to retrieve what had been said but they just wouldn’t go. He just couldn’t reach the information. He sighed in frustration. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep either and that bothered him. As a Time Lord his sense of time was such that he should be able estimate if he had been unconscious for days or weeks but he was coming up blank. He could have been here years. Well it was time to do something about that. First things first, eyes open.  
He opened them a crack and immediately yelped in pain. Well at least he could now make suitable yelping sounds, it was a step up from a low moan. He heard a small clatter and voice one commanded the ship turn down the lights. ‘Try now,’ it said to him, moving closer.  
Cautiously he opened one eye and was met with a dark blue gloom. It didn’t cause him pain so he followed up with a blink and a wary opening of both eyes.  
‘Take your time, adjust,’ voice one said. The Doctor stared at the ceiling which in the dark didn’t give him much clue as to where he was. As though reading his mind Voice One offered an explanation. ‘Still in the medi bay. You’ve been here ten days in total. More recently you’ve been waking for longer periods but your memory is still a bit patchy.’  
He swallowed hard trying to lubricate his throat so that he might speak. ‘Wait I’ll get you water,’ the voice said. He heard it move off and briefly thanked the Gods he seemed to have landed such an attentive nurse who appeared to be able to read his needs. Telepathic species? Then again he may be linked up to some futuristic monitor that could do the same.  
The glass of water pressed to his lips and the hand under his head angling him safely cut off his thoughts. He sipped on the water and had never been so grateful for its cool clear sensation in his mouth. After a little while he sighed contentedly.  
‘Better?’ the voice asked gently.  
‘Yes…’ he managed.  
‘Well look at you, talking,’ the voice sounded like a smile, ‘There’s a step forward.’ His own lips twitched in response, something about the quality of the voice evoked pleasant feelings in him. It was a woman, he was clear headed enough to tell that now, but he didn’t recognise it.  
‘It’s dark…’ he observed.  
‘Your eyes are still sensitive.’  
‘I can’t see you, or where I am…’  
‘If we lift the lights too early we might cause more damage,’ it said evasively.  
‘Oh…’  
‘Can you sit up, do you think?’  
‘I don’t know… maybe…’  
‘Take your time I’ll help you,’ the voice said. He heard the glass being put down and felt arms come around him. The Doctor took a breath and pushed himself up the bed a little guided by the woman’s hands, bracing himself on her forearms. She quickly fixed some pillows behind him and let him settle back. ‘Well done,’ she said.  
‘So how long until I get better?’ he asked. ‘I’m a Time Lord I should have healed by now.’  
‘You need to be patient, you’re getting there…’  
‘I’m not the patient type.’  
‘I know,’ she laughed.  
‘How do you know?’  
‘Trust me I just do,’ she replied a hint of something in her voice that felt melancholy to him.  
‘Where’s my TARDIS?’ he asked.  
‘On board, she’s safe.’  
‘On board? So this is a ship?’  
‘Yes, a ship like yours actually.’  
‘I doubt that very much,’ he said a little smugly, ‘I’m a time traveller, that’s what TARDIS stands for. Time and….’  
‘Relative dimensions in space, I know,’ the voice cut in. The Doctor hesitated.  
‘How do you know that?’  
A giggle from beside him, a light, fruity sound. ‘Because Doctor, I have one too.’  
‘That’s impossible.’  
‘No it isn’t!’  
‘Are you from Gallifrey?’ he felt a knot of panic. Damned TARDIS had taken him to the nearest Gallifreyan vessel. The next best thing to the planet. Now the two voices he had heard would return him there, the last place he wanted to go.  
‘No,’ the pleasant voice said, ‘I’m not from Gallifrey, I’m on my way there. But I’m not in any hurry.’  
‘Take my advice and don’t go, the place is nothing but trouble,’ the Doctor said.  
‘It depends how you look at it…’ the voice said vaguely.  
‘So this is a TARDIS?’ he asked. ‘You have your own TARDIS? They aren’t exactly common.’  
‘Yup my very own.’  
‘But that would mean…. Ah!’ a sudden burst of pain at both temples drew him away from the conundrum in front of him. He clutched at his head helplessly where the burning was beginning to spread.  
‘Doctor?’ rising alarm in the voice now.  
‘Pain… pain’s back….. like it was before… before I was here. Oh Gods make it stop….’  
He felt the woman lean over him, her fingers on the tight area on one of his arms, a moment of fumbling and an icy sensation in his veins followed by a rush to his brain of lightheadness, pain relief following in its wake. He slumped back against the pillows.  
‘Careful,’ the voice said.  
‘What was that?’ his breath was coming in short bursts, he shut his eyes against the dark blue light briefly.  
‘You’re not fully recovered, you are liable to have the odd burst like that, I’ve given you something to help.’  
‘What triggered it…?’  
He heard her take a breath and then stop. ‘I think it might have been my fault,’ she said.  
‘What were we doing?’ the Doctor tried to think through the cloud of pain medication and burning neurons. ‘What were we talking about? I’m on a ship… a TARDIS…. You said it was a TARDIS…. But I’ve got the only TARDIS.’  
‘Don’t right now,’ she said, ‘You might trigger another attack.’ He could feel her trying to guide him away from the subject gently and he might well have followed her suggestion if she hadn’t laid her hand on his.  
Touch telepathy had its place when other senses were struggling. It was what evolution was all about. When his sight was compromised he automatically engaged what little skills he had in reading others.  
Through the darkness of his disparate thoughts there was a rush of imagery. A diner in the desert. Snacks and Gas. Elvis Presley on the wall and lemonade in glasses. The soft sound of a sad song played on an electric guitar deafened by the roar of engines. The building dematerialising around him leaving him quite alone. The mural on the door of his TARDIS and the face he saw there.  
The face he saw there, the face he couldn’t quite recall but he remembered seeing it. He remembered looking at that panel on the door and realising something so important. Something so vital. There was a woman, a woman in a blue dress. She’d served him lemonade and listened to him telling a sad story. There was a woman… and… he couldn’t reach it….  
‘There was a woman…’ he muttered, ‘In the desert.’  
‘Doctor you should rest now,’ the voice beside him was saying with concern.  
‘There was a woman! Can’t rest, this is important, this woman…. She had a TARDIS, she disappeared. She had a TARDIS too because… because….’  
‘Doctor…’  
‘Because I stole one, I opened a passage in the Cloisters to the repair workshop and I stole one. Another one, for us… for her,’ he shut his eyes and tried to picture the scene. Kneeling on the Cloister floor trying to open the seal and beside him… he was aware of the tears running down his cheeks.  
‘Please don’t,’ the voice said and he felt her hands come to his face, brush away the tears.  
‘Clara,’ he said suddenly and the hands jerked from his cheeks. ‘She was in the Cloisters, Clara was in the Cloisters and then we stole the TARDIS and…. And… neural block, we used the neural block, I went too far…. I went too far and we had to be apart but I can’t remember….’  
‘Shhh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned the TARDIS, shh, rest now.’  
‘No, I have to remember.’ The pain was unbearable now, washing in burning waves through his mind, his eyes squeezed shut as he fought to recall. The woman’s hand wrapped around his now, linking fingers, tugging.  
‘Doctor… Doctor don’t do this… don’t you’re in pain, just let it go…. Don’t force the memory, the memories were wiped for a reason, right? Don’t fight it now…. Please I can’t bear to see you like this…’  
‘But it’s so near. And there’s only one logical conclusion, don’t you see? Don’t you know? You have to know... I stole a TARDIS, a second TARDIS, and she was in it, Clara, and I saw her face in the mural and I realised it had been her in that Diner all along but then I forgot again, I forgot again and I couldn’t picture her. And now….this is a TARDIS this is….you are….’  
He stopped briefly.  
‘Turn the lights up,’ he said to the room, ‘turn them up, turn them up!’  
‘Doctor please, please stay calm, you’re not well,’  
‘Turn up the lights!’ he ordered.  
‘She won’t obey, this is my TARDIS,’  
‘Then you tell her to raise them!’ he shouted.  
‘No… you need to rest, you need to lie back down…’  
‘So I can forget again? Is that it? So I can succumb to this virus and the block and have it wipe out my memories the moment I’m asleep again. So that the next time I wake I won’t have a clue who you are? So I have to work out the puzzle over and over? Oh Clara, if you are Clara, would you really want that for me? I spent billions of years doing just that, dying, forgetting and restarting my little journey, for you. Don’t make me do this again.’  
He could hear her crying next to him, a dark silhouette in the med bay, her features undiscernible.  
‘Please Doctor I don’t want this… I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want you to feel the way you felt then….’  
‘Then turn up the lights!’  
‘I can’t….’  
‘No but I can,’ the second voice said suddenly, ‘That’s enough, both of you. Turn the lights up! Now!’  
The lights overhead came on strong and white and for a second all the Doctor could do was blink against them, his hands over his eyes lifting slowly to try and adapt to the surroundings. Then finally his eyes fell on a figure by the door, darkly dressed with the face of a girl but he knew immediately she was a being as old as him at least.  
‘Ashildr,’ he said, ‘The Lady Me.’ He saw her open her mouth to respond but his gaze had sharply turned to the other woman in the room. Brown hair, big brown eyes, tearstained cheeks. She looked at him terrified, anxious and caring, as though for all the world seeing him was both the only and the last thing she wanted.  
‘Hi,’ she said quietly, her hand still on his. He looked at it, flicked his eyes to hers requesting permission and she nodded, never moving her gaze from him. He watched her memories of them together roll slowly through her mind. It was her, of that he had no doubt, she shared the experiences he knew related to her. In her head he watched himself on the Orient Express, their time on Skaro, the Raven on Trap Street. He tried the same memories in his own mind. It was her but in all of his own memories he couldn’t see her face.  
Clara, his Clara was there, right in front of him, frozen in time, she hadn’t aged a day, he knew that. No pulse at her wrist, no breath. He had lifted her from her timeline and now she sat between heartbeats unchanged, beautiful. This was the heroine in his story. This was the woman for whom he was willing to destroy the universe. Whose death had driven him to the edge of sanity. For whose life he spent an eternity in his confession dial so that he could bargain for it. He had loved her more than anything he had ever loved, he remembered that much but he could never remember her.  
They silently watched one another and he was acutely aware she still had all of her memories, that on some level this was as painful for her as it was for him. He could see it in her eyes, in the emotions he felt through her skin. He wished that he had more than an academic appreciation of those feelings. That he still felt his love for her and not just the memory of it.  
His Clara. Sitting by him now. He could touch her, look into her eyes and share with her reminiscences of the things they had done but it didn’t feel real, it didn’t feel complete. He didn’t know her anymore. He just knew she had been so important. And she could see that in his face, she could see it and it was hurting her. With each passing second her expression saddened.  
‘Hello,’ he said quietly at last, ‘You must be Clara Oswald.’

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
He refused point blank to sleep again. He refused to lie back on the bed and he insisted on getting up and dressing. He absolutely did not want to drift off and waste time. He could not risk drifting off and forgetting that this was Clara. He wasn’t entirely sure how the neural block was working alongside the virus he carried and what he would or wouldn’t remember with regards to her. So he decided he couldn’t risk it.  
Clara made him coffee. It seemed like such a simple gesture, something that should have no significance at all, but as he watched her move around her ‘Diner’ he suddenly realised that she remembered every detail about him. Seven sugars and cream, she stirred it and presented it to him with a plate of jammie dodgers as he sat by the counter.  
‘Here,’ she said.  
‘Thank you,’ he rotated the mug between his fingertips, glanced up out of the diner windows at the stars outside. They appeared to be floating somewhere relatively close to earth, certainly within the Milkyway. He wondered how far she had travelled, over how long. His sense of time was still disrupted.  
‘It’s weird seeing you here,’ Clara said and then laughed at herself, ‘Ok that’s an understatement. I mean it’s weird you sitting where you’re sitting, there. That’s where you were when…’  
‘I remember the diner,’ he said returning his eyes to the coffee, ‘I remember telling my story… our story to a girl there… I just don’t remember…’  
‘Me… you don’t remember it being me.’  
‘It blocks out your face, your voice, everything I know about you that’s specific to you, favourite colours, significant dates...’  
‘I won’t expect a birthday card this year then?’ she gave him a small smile.  
‘Stop being brave,’ he said quietly, ‘This is bad enough for me and I can’t remember half of it.’ He risked a glance at her and saw her eyes become glassy with tears before she quickly turned to pour herself a coffee too.   
‘I’m sorry,’ he said passing one hand over his face, ‘I just don’t quite know what to do here…’  
‘There isn’t really a precedent for it,’ Clara said, shrugged her shoulders minutely.  
‘I shouldn’t be here.’  
‘You’re not going anywhere.’  
‘There’s a reason we couldn’t stay together….’ The Doctor leaned back a little on the stool.  
‘That was then. Right now you’re still ill…’  
‘I’ll be fine, I think the safety of the universe outweighs me having a bit of a headache.’  
‘It’s hardly that insignificant, you nearly died…’ Clara shot back at him. ‘We saved you. Remember? Ashildr and I?’  
‘And I’m extremely grateful but now I’m recovered it would be better if I just went,’ he said a little more firmly.  
‘You don’t mean that,’ she said abruptly, ‘You’re just trying to run.’ There was an awkward silence and for a second he couldn’t look her in the face. ‘Well isn’t that what you’re doing?’ Clara pushed, her arms folded defensively and something like fire in her stare.  
‘Isn’t that what you told me to do?’ he looked up at her at last, straight in her eyes. A tiny twitch of a muscle in her face.  
Run you clever boy….  
‘Yes,’ she said in a whisper, ‘And I wish to God I hadn’t.’ She held his gaze for a moment until the first of her tears threatened to spill and then turned sharply away, angrily swiping at the counter with a rag for something to do. He felt like he had been stabbed.  
‘It was for the best,’ he said weakly.  
‘Right,’ Clara tensed. ‘Right,’ she refolded her arms, looked hard out of the windows, nodded, ‘For the best. The best for whom? The universe? You? Me? Well the universe is fine so maybe. And the Doctor he’s fine too because he can’t remember any of it. But me? Me? Well I’m sorry but it’s really not working out for me?’  
‘Clara…’  
‘It’s not been working out for me because I never really wanted it in the first place. Because it broke my heart to see you forget me. Because I’ve been floating about in this… this…’ the tears started falling, ‘This bloody tin can for over a hundred years now and I’ve lost my family and all my friends and really I should have given up and died decades ago so that I wouldn’t have to see all that but I couldn’t. I couldn’t and that’s down to you.’  
‘Clara I don’t know what you mean?’  
‘No well you never were very good at this stuff.’   
‘Clara…’  
‘I mean I don’t age, I don’t have to sleep, or eat or drink. I just keep on existing. Ashildr is here and that’s something because honestly I’d be insane without her by now otherwise.’  
‘Clara I of all people can under….’  
‘Understand?’ Clara looked at him her tone suddenly softening, ‘I already know you understand. You said to me once that being immortal wasn’t about living forever, it was about watching everyone else die. Well everyone died Doctor. My gran, my dad, my colleagues, my friends. They all died.’  
‘I’m sorry, Clara.’  
‘Except you,’ she went on. ‘You were still out there somewhere. Still popping up on the scanner now and then. I used to wander about the TARDIS when Ashildr was asleep,’ she laughed, ‘You used to get pretty fed up waiting for me to sleep and now I know why, it really is boring.’  
Despite himself the Doctor smiled. ‘Yes those hours waiting on companions’ tardy physiology can be pretty dull.’  
‘Well every now and then during those times I’d have a little peek. See where you were.’  
‘Spying on me were you?’ he asked.  
‘I preferred to think of it as watching over you,’ Clara said kindly, ‘Isn’t that what I was born to do?’   
‘Impossible Girl,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘She’s just a character in a story for me now.’  
‘No… she isn’t, she’s right here, standing in front of you.’  
The Doctor felt his throat tighten. ‘I wish I could remember.’  
Clara’s hand covered one of his briefly and he could hear a hitch in her voice when she replied ‘So do I.’  
‘So that’s why you carried on?’ the Doctor asked. ‘Because I was still floating around the universe?’  
Clara squeezed his hand, ‘Well Doctor I had a duty of care.’  
He lifted his head suddenly to look at her. An image of himself sitting watching a sunset with a girl next to him. It looked as though he was in some sort of early settlement. He couldn’t see her face but he remembered she wore blue. Duty of care. Duty of care. He’d been trying to protect her. Clara. The picture faded as she carried on speaking.  
‘And really would it have been so bad, so dangerous for us to bump into one another now and then?’ Clara asked a little tearfully, ‘Would it have been so awful?’  
He felt distracted, half confused as though he couldn’t follow the stream of his thoughts. They were memories he realised, trying to surface. ‘Clara, I stole you from your time stream, if it had succeeded, if your pulse and restarted the integrity of the universe might have…’  
‘Sod the universe!’ she exclaimed suddenly, her cheeks wet. The Doctor snapped back into the reality of the diner, his confused thoughts disintegrating. ‘Just… sod it! I don’t have a pulse, the universe hasn’t crumbled, the universe isn’t a bloody issue right now, we are.’  
He stammered. ‘But that’s just it… it’s the principal of the thing… the lengths I would have gone to, to save you…. I was obsessed, unhealthily so…. I couldn’t just let you die.’  
Clara looked at the ceiling and pressed her lips together in a gesture of self control. ‘I’m not going to die you idiot,’ she said quietly.  
‘Well...’ he raised his eyebrows, ‘That’s not exactly….’  
‘Don’t you see?’ Clara asked him resignedly. ‘Everything’s different. What you did changed things, for better or worse but it changed things. My death is now a fixed point. One day I will go back to that street, when I choose to, and die. It’ll happen yes, but only when I’m ready and that can be any day from now until the day the universe ends. I’m not immortal, but I am damned close to it. You don’t need to worry anymore about me, I’m master of my own destiny thanks to you. I die when I say so.’  
‘Clara what you’re saying is dangerous.’  
‘Not if we both know where we stand. You’re not immortal either. In fact you’re probably even less immortal than me…. You’re the vulnerable one now, you could die at any time! How did you put it? You thought I was more ‘breakable’ than you back then. That I shouldn’t throw myself into things because I was only human and bad things could happen to me so easily. Well I’m not the breakable one now. I’m on at least a par with you. We’re equals Doctor. Equals and I know for certain the last hundred years has taught me a hell of a lot about life, about long life and what matters. And you matter. You matter to me. I miss you. I can’t just let go of you now you’re here! There, I’ve said it now.’  
He tried to look at her but the light was hurting his eyes, distorting again around him. The Doctor rubbed at his brows, his head starting to pound again, his fatigue increasing. His thoughts were coming to him slower, he was struggling to follow the argument Clara was laying in front of him no matter how hard he reached for the words in his mind. And the pain. It just kept mounting, a tearing pushing pain right in the centre of his head. He felt nauseous and realised that Clara must have seen it in him because she quickly walked around the counter, stood by him, one hand on his back.  
‘Doctor? Are you OK?’  
‘I…. I just can’t…. my head….I feel….’ He moaned unexpectedly and covered his stomach with one hand.  
‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry…’ she soothed, her palm now rubbing circles over his spine. ‘You don’t need this, I didn’t mean to get into this. Oh God I only meant to make you a coffee! Your nerves are jangled enough without me getting all intense on you.’  
The Doctor laughed weakly. ‘I don’t blame you for it, I would want to too. I do want to…. But everything feels jumbled.’  
‘I know… I know…’ and she suddenly pulled him closer to her so that both arms could encircle him. He felt her press a kiss to his temple. ‘I’m sorry.’   
Anyone else and he would have fought to disentangle himself from the hug. He hated invasion of his personal space. He had a distant memory of a faceless Clara figure taking months to persuade him to embrace her. But here, now, he sank into her arms suddenly certain she was who he thought she was and that brought comfort. He breathed slowly trying to calm the sick feeling in is gut. She smelt so familiar, a scent that conjured up images of a double sunset somewhere and a purple sea. Light and floral, fresh like linen. He found himself slipping his arms around her waist.  
‘You need to rest,’ she was saying, ‘Please…’  
‘I can’t… I’ll forget.’  
‘You don’t know that.’  
‘That’s what makes it so terrifying. I don’t want to forget all this.’ Suddenly he was aware of a tightness in his throat, a heat in his eyes. He tried to bite down a sob. ‘Sorry, sorry, must be the virus. My emotions seem to be all over the place.’  
‘Shh…’  
The Doctor dropped his forehead to Clara’s shoulder and felt her hand come up to his hair while he nuzzled closer to the scent he had detected. The image of the purple sea intensified. Now there was a beach littered with strange seaweeds and tiny sea creatures in pools. Ahead of him a figure was skipping in and out of the rocks, peering at the crustaceans and tiny fish trapped there as the tide went out. She turned to him and smiled. It was Clara.  
He sat up straight suddenly holding Clara at arm’s length and looking into her eyes.  
‘What? Are you ok?’ she asked, a tiny line appearing between her eyes as she frowned in concern. He watched it, aware of a smile developing on his lips. He recognised that frown.  
‘Did we go to Poseidon III?’ he asked.  
‘Umm…’  
‘Huge wet planet with purple water, two suns…. Lots of weird sea creatures, things with seven legs,’ he waved his arms excitedly.  
‘Oh! Yes, yes we did! It had that lovely little village by the beach. I’ve been back a few times. I got this gorgeous perfume there when we went and I go back to stock up now and then.’  
He caught the realisation in her eyes. ‘I’m wearing it now,’ she said.  
‘I know. It triggered a memory. At least I think it’s a memory, it could be wishful thinking.’ He could tell Clara was trying very hard not to grin, something to do with her dimples that he was certain he’d seen before. They had a habit of twitching and revealing themselves before her smile.  
‘That’s good, that’s good right?’ she asked. ‘I mean if you can remember that then maybe…’  
‘I don’t know, shouldn’t get too excited about it. But maybe we should check the neural block at some point. The virus may well have interfered with it. Yes…. we should scan my head…. We should…’ he gripped his temples as another wave of pain hit him.   
‘Later. We’ll do it but it has to be later, when you aren’t in pain.’  
‘Right… no… we should do it now…. I…’ he tried to fight the cloud of fatigue washing over him.  
‘Later,’ Clara said. ‘I promise. You need to lie down now.’  
‘Ok, ok just for a while.’  
Does this mean you’ll sleep?’ Clara asked in a most teacherly manner.  
‘Not sure I’m feeling that confident.’  
‘What if….’ She paused and seemed to reflect for a moment on levels of risk. ‘What if I come with you? Hold your hand or… I don’t know…. you were doing the telepathic thing before? Maybe if we stay connected that way?’  
‘Did we do that sort of thing? Back then… before…’ he asked and was surprised to see Clara blush slightly.  
‘What sort of thing? Sleep?’ she managed.  
‘Together?’ he queried hesitantly. ‘Sleep or… joining or…’ he struggled for words.  
‘Well not strictly speaking no…’ she picked at the formica counter for a moment. ‘God this must be a bit weird for you. I keep forgetting you can’t remember what we…. How we were,’ she blushed harder.   
‘We were…. A thing?’ he asked, eyes widening a little.  
‘No… not a thing. Not a thing.’  
‘Oh,’ the Doctor paused, thoughtful. Not an intimate relationship then, not physically at least. But he couldn’t shake the feeling of being comfortable with her now. Something within him remembered and connected.  
Clara was speaking again, dragging him from the mess of trying to understand. ‘I know this probably feels alien to you, some woman you’ve just met…’  
‘I don’t feel like I’ve just met you,’ he said.  
Clara paused, ‘Good,’ she said quietly, ‘Because you haven’t.’  
‘I just wanted you to know that,’ he clarified, ‘I can’t remember you but… you feel… familiar.’  
She smiled at him and he felt his hearts leap. ‘Good,’ she said again, ‘We’re really… familiar. So…. How about some sleep?’  
The Doctor rolled his eyes again. She was persistent, this Clara woman.  
‘I’ll come with you, if having me there reassures you, or stops you forgetting?’  
‘You don’t mind?’ he asked.  
Clara’s face suddenly shifted from teasing smile to deep affection. She reached forward and gently stroked the hair at his temple.  
‘I wouldn’t have minded then and I don’t mind now,’ she said a little sadly. ‘You only ever had to ask Doctor. I often think that’s where it all went wrong. We never asked one another.’  
He couldn’t look away from her eyes for a moment and he swallowed painfully. She was remembering. He wanted to, but couldn’t.  
‘Clara, I… I don’t know what…’  
She cut him off before he could tread any path of regret and lost memory. ‘Hey do you know what?’ she asked cheerfully, ‘I’m the perfect person for this job.’  
‘Oh?’ the Doctor grasped the change of mood, her lifeline cast to him.  
‘Mmhmm. You can sleep as long as you need, I won’t need to leave you. I’ll never get hungry or need the loo…’  
He chuckled, ‘You might get a bit bored.’  
‘I’ll bring a book or three. Tell Ashildr to look after the place for a while, she doesn’t mind she’s busy tinkering with the Chameleon loop anyway. It’s her absolute pet hate. Over the years she’s got everything working or upgraded except that. She picked up some components the last place we went so she’s quite engrossed.’  
‘Oh she’ll never manage it, I never did. It’s a fault with all the mark 40s. Tell her to give up now or it’ll drive her insane.’  
‘Nah,’ Clara said after a moment’s thought, ‘Keeps her occupied. Come on you daft old man…’ she tugged him off the barstool, hand firmly in his in a gesture that seemed somehow to fit perfectly, ‘Bedtime.’  
He trotted behind her easily. ‘Don’t you ever get sick of it being a diner?’ the Doctor asked as they left the room.  
‘No I think it’s pretty awesome….’ Clara said confidently, and then with a wink, ‘Pain in the arse to park though.’  
XXXXXXXXX

He slept. Despite himself. Clara had covered him in homely looking blankets which she explained used to be belong to her Gran. They were silly, pink woolly things with darned patches but she insisted they would be the best thing for the job. She tucked up the Doctor like that and he just dozed off, Clara by his side engrossed in a novel.  
It was slightly embarrassing, the ease with which he passed out cuddled up next to her like she was some sort of stuffed toy. He was a Time Lord, he could survive on a twenty minute doze a day but there he was, out cold. It was the easiest and longest sleep he’d had as far back as he remembered. He still wasn’t sure how far back that actually was.  
He dreamt of the beach and the seven legged crab Clara had found. She’d caught it in a net and fretted that she’d damaged it in some way until he had explained to her that it was supposed to have seven legs and could she please stop worrying. He smiled in his sleep, it was all so beautifully clear. The woman next to him was Clara, and the woman in his dream was too. Something in his chest relaxed as the two things married together; if only he could remember more.  
The Doctor wasn’t sure what time he woke, not that time mattered, but Clara had finished her novel and was holding him to her side with one arm, her hand very gently stroking through his hair. He made a snuffling waking noise against her and she laughed.  
‘Hello,’ she said as he pushed himself away from her, limbs and back stiff.  
‘Gods, how long have I been there like that?’ he griped trying to rub the pain from his neck. His logic told him she was a stranger, that he’d been with her just a few hours, but his gut instinct told him otherwise, it was okay for her to see him like that, mussed up and drowsy.  
‘I’ve lost track, you must have needed it, it…’  
‘Wait!’ he said suddenly, a look of panic in his eyes.  
‘What? Are you OK?’  
‘You’re…’ he flapped one hand, ‘You’re Clara.’  
She smiled, relieved, ‘Yes, I’m Clara.’  
He breathed out, ‘Good, just checking, you’re still Clara, not someone else, it can happen sometimes, people change. Zygons for example they change all the time.’  
‘I can confirm I am and always have been, Clara,’ she said.  
‘Good. Right… I dreamt of you,’ he said, thinking hard.  
‘Oh?’ there was the lightest tease to her voice.  
‘Yes, it was definitely you, on the beach again, your face, your voice. It must have been a memory... maybe… maybe it was just a dream.’  
‘What were we doing?’ she asked.  
‘You were scared you’d snapped a leg off a crab…’ he said and won a confused look from her.  
‘Okay,’ she started and he felt his hearts sink, just a dream, ‘No, wait,’ she went on, ‘Seven legged crab, big green bug eyes, I did worry I’d hurt it there for a minute, you told me I as an idiot.’  
The Doctor’s eyes widened, ‘So it was a memory?’  
‘Sounds like it was,’ Clara returned his smile.  
He rubbed his forehead, the ache returning to his head. Clara caught the movement. ‘Still pounding?’ she asked.  
‘It seems to get worse every time I think of you or try to reach a memory. Like something is tearing inside me.’  
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Clara said with a grimace. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t be talking like this, trying to remember?’  
‘I’m not sure what’s for the best Clara. I know we separated for good reason but at the same time there’s a part of me….’ He trailed off, pressed one palm to his temple.  
Clara took his hand. ‘Let’s fix your head first, then it might be easier to think. You’re still got the virus, you need to get better, it’s a nasty one.’  
He nodded, ‘How much longer do you think? Did Ashildr’s texts indicate recovery time?’  
‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted. ‘We were too busy reading about how it might kill you and trying to avoid that. If I wasn’t immortal you’d have scared me half to death. We have to get it right out of your system, no traces left or it could come back at any time, worse than before even. Let’s deal with that before we deal with our moral dilemma, now isn’t the time for an ethical debate about love and the universe.’  
The Doctor snorted and then grimaced, the pain setting up in the centre of his skull and burning at a steady eight out of ten. ‘Could I see the text? I mean I’m a bit more fluent than Ashildr in Gallifreyan.’  
‘Sure,’  
‘And Clara, could we scan my head now? As much as I’m feeling better I don’t feel exactly right either. I want to see what’s going on in there. The neural block feels different.’  
She looked at him curiously, ‘Different how?’  
‘Like Swiss cheese,’ he said vaguely and she laughed. ‘That’s not the best description is it?’ he smiled. ‘But it’s the best I can come up with right now. It’s like there’s a wall around my memories of you and before this virus it blocked everything to do with you from view. Now I can see through, catch glimpses now and then.’  
Clara was still giggling to herself, ‘So I’m what, scuttling about in your head, poking my face out of the Swiss cheese now and then? You make me sound like a mouse.’  
‘You’re about the right size,’ he observed.  
Clara rolled her eyes, batted him on the arm. ‘You don’t change,’ she said. The Doctor smiled for just a moment before a wave of sadness seemed to pass over him.   
‘I can’t remember,’ he said quietly, ‘Did we always tease each other like this?’  
‘Yes,’ she said firmly.  
‘But I hate banter…’  
‘I know you do,’ she said, ‘You made an exception for me.’  
‘I can imagine I made a lot of exceptions for you,’ he said thoughtfully.  
Clara looked at him sadly for a moment and reached up to brush the hair at his temple. ‘That was where we went wrong,’ she said softly, ‘we broke all the rules.’  
‘Why do I have the feeling we still would?’ he said almost in a whisper. Clara’s eyes filled with tears and she pressed her lips together hard to try and stop them spilling. Something hung in the air between them, in the way she looked at him. Her fingers touched his cheek, brushed lightly over his mouth, and his instinct was to lean towards her.  
‘Come on,’ she said after a heavy pause, ‘Scanner. Lets’ see what we’re dealing with.’

 


	3. Chapter 3

Clara was looking at him expectantly from the bed of the scanner where she perched waiting for him to flick through the Gallifreyan text on the screen. He could practically feel her big eyes on the back of his neck as he scrolled. The information was much as he expected except that bits of it was much worse.  
‘So,’ she prompted from behind him, ‘space flu, that’s how it started right?’  
‘I’m a bit patchy, I just remember the pain getting suddenly worse and everything being blurry; vision, sound, lots of distortion. The symptoms are correct for this virus. Being Gallifreyan I seem to be more prone to it that a human might be, more neurological nastiness.’ He rubbed his hair and scrolled onto the next screen. ‘Seems you stabilised me.’  
‘We didn’t need to do much just give you painkillers and hydration, let the TARDIS monitor you and keep your vitals in range. She did most of the work, it was a bit beyond us, and then after a day or so you were stabilising yourself.’  
‘Time Lord healing coma,’ he explained, ‘It’s reduced the viral load quite a bit, but…’  
‘It’ll come back,’ she said despondently ‘Ashildr mentioned but she wasn’t one hundred percent sure, the symbols weren’t clear.’  
‘Negatives can be hard to detect in Gallifreyan verb structures. But yes, it will come back…’  
‘Why exactly?’ Clara asked.  
‘It’s hiding in my nervous system. Like chickenpox and shingles, that sort of relationship where you think you’re over it and its gone forever and then it springs up when your defences are low.’  
‘Shingles can be terrible,’ Clara said, ‘Is this the same.’  
He looked a grimly at the screen. ‘When this particular virus goes into hiding it comes back ten times stronger. It doesn’t like losing and it won’t lose twice. Next time it will be deadly. It’s a ticking time bomb.’  
Her eyes widened. ‘Your virus hasn’t even gone away completely,’ Clara said, a slight look of horror on her face, ‘You’re still in pain.’  
‘That’s not the virus,’ he said quietly.  
‘Sorry, what?’  
He sighed and turned away from the screen. The virus is dormant, it’s still sitting in my brain, but its biding its time. No, the pain is from something else.’  
‘The neural block?’  
He nodded, a wary look crossing his face. ‘Looking at the scan results the virus bonded itself to the most attractive and prominent neurons, that way it could force itself into my system more easily, it’s why I succumbed so fast and why it might return sooner rather than later, I have a weak spot.’  
‘So the virus has….’  
‘It’s attached to the neural block and the neural block isn’t liking it one bit. It’s been made into Swiss cheese and destabilised.’  
‘Doctor, how do we fix this?’  
He looked at her, clearly torn. ‘To get rid of the virus we need to hit it hard, something akin to radiotherapy, and quickly too before it decides to redouble its efforts and come back for the kill.’  
‘So we blast it, can we do it here?’ Clara asked. ‘The medi bay is pretty high spec.’  
‘Yes,’ he said hesitantly, the TARDIS has the means, we can adapt the scanner, but…’  
‘But?’  
‘The virus is attached to the neural block. If we blast it, it takes the block with it. I’ll remember… everything.’  
Clara looked at him carefully, ‘That’s a good thing isn’t it?’  
‘Is it?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘It will all flood back, I’ll be the man who nearly destroyed the universe for you, all over again.’  
‘Time has passed since then,’ Clara said, ‘I’m sure we can be a lot more level headed about it.’  
‘I have the impression that the way I felt about you then will not have altered,’ he protested softly, ‘I’m not sure I can find it that simple to be ‘more levelled headed.’’  
‘A lot has changed, if you can’t trust yourself, Doctor, you have to put your trust in me. Your memories returning, they would be a help not a hindrance. It’ll be a second chance.’  
‘We had one of those already. Clara,’ he sighed, struggling with his words, ‘Already I can feel myself becoming attached to you, fond of you…’  
She shook her head at his odd choice of words as he fumbled to explain. ‘Clara, this is hard, I feel like I’ve known you forever and that all will be well but history says otherwise.’  
‘Doctor, have any of the Swiss cheese holes looked down over the Cloisters?’ Clara asked kindly. ‘We said a lot of things there that we should have said long before. Things that would have made all the difference I think but it was too late though, everything was a mess. We can do over this time. Trust me, I don’t want the universe to end either.’  
The Doctor gripped his forehead and winced, the pain of trying to recall anything from that time increasing suddenly.  
‘Clara if we kill off the virus, the block ends, my feelings return and…’  
‘… the universe doesn’t end.’  
‘We could be back to square one.’  
‘No,’ Clara said, ‘I wouldn’t let it happen.’  
‘I don’t think it works that way,’ the Doctor argued, ‘I think that was the problem. We got in too deep, we obsessed, we took risks, we thought we were untouchable.’  
‘You’re not seriously suggesting we do nothing about the virus though, right?’ Clara said jokingly. ‘You’ve just told me it’s a ticking time bomb. That it might kill you. That having the neural block means that might happen sooner rather than later.’  
‘It is, it will but it might not come back for years, decades, as long as I look after myself.’  
‘Shut up!’ Clara said dismissively, ‘We are not doing that, we’re not doing nothing, it’s not an option.’  
‘Clara...’  
‘No… ‘  
‘We’re doing it again and I don’t even have my memories,’ the Doctor protested. The pain was growing again and the tearing sensation was spreading. He could feel it in his ears, watching as his vision doubled again and sound distorted. He staggered a little, grabbed the edge of the scanner close to where Clara sat.  
‘Doctor!’  
The wind went out of him and he doubled over clutching at his head, aware of a noise coming from his throat along the lines of a growl. He could taste blood and he realised his nose was bleeding, but the thumping ripping pain just grew further. The Doctor’s knees buckled and he fell against the bed.  
Clara was quick to catch him and use his momentum to tip him onto the scanner bed. He sensed from her what her next move might be and weakly tried to fight her off. Through blurred vision he saw her reach around him and grasp the safety restraints on the machine, tie him down into place.  
‘What is going on?’ he could hear Ashildr over the increasing number of bleeps ad alarms going off as Clara programmed the machine. ‘Clara? What are you doing?’  
‘The virus is attached to the neural block, it’s already damaged it and that’s why he’s in pain but if that virus comes back full force he’s dead. We have to get rid of it once and for all.’  
‘Clara if you do that, won’t his memories come back?’ Ashildr asked urgently.  
‘Yes,’ Clara was tapping numbers into the scanner now, calculating radiation.  
‘But you know what that means!’  
‘Do I? Do you?’ Clara asked, ‘We don’t know what it means, we can’t see into the future.’  
‘No but we’ve been to it,’ Ashildr argued, ‘We saw the future, you and I, we saw what he’s capable of, you saw how far he went, he can do that again, he can destroy everything for you. We agreed, patch him up, send him out. You can’t go back to how it was, and you can’t be together.’  
Clara rounded on her angrily. ‘No, I didn’t agree. And he won’t do it again, he won’t destroy everything.’  
‘You don’t know that,’ Ashildr pleaded, pushing against the console to try and deactivate the scanner. ‘This is serious Clara, he didn’t make a tiny mistake, he didn’t break a cup, he nearly ripped time itself apart, for you!’  
Clara wrestled against her. ‘It’s different!’ she said again.  
‘How do you know?’ Ashildr repeated.  
‘I do!’  
‘How?’  
‘Because it has to be different this time! It has to be! I’ll make it different!’  
‘How? How will you make it different? You don’t have that power, you’re not a Time Lord. He couldn’t manage it, how will you?’  
Clara managed to shove Ashildr back and out of the way as she slammed her hand down on the central lever of the machine.  
‘Because he will know how much I care about him,’ she said forcefully, ‘Because this time he doesn’t have to lose me. Because this time he won’t think he’s always alone. Because I told him, in the Cloisters, everything he needs to know, and he’ll remember.’  
The equipment let out a high metallic screech and the scanner bed slide back towards the core of the machine.  
‘Clara!’ Ashildr’s voice again, a scuffle. ‘This is wrong!’  
‘No, get off me, get away, we’re doing this! I will not let the Doctor die!’ the scanner hummed, rattled into action and the pulse of radiation therapy began, a target light central on the Doctor’s forehead. The pain flared and sound faded, darkness swirled in front of his eyes, blocking the bright white of the scanner. He felt sick, his stomach churned and he tried hard to grip onto reality, fingers tight on the bed.  
In his mind he saw Clara on the beach, and again in a meadow watching a sunset, on a mountain side sleeping under the stars. He saw her dressed for school but running through a jungle full of sentient plants, he saw her wearing red jumping for joy, he saw her on the Orient Express leaning on his arm. The memories started to come thick and fast, Clara on the TARDIS, Clara on the moon, Clara curled in the corner of her sofa with a book as he tried to coax her out of the flat one Wednesday. Clara, Clara, Clara, so many images, so many snippets of her voice, the sound of her laughter reaching out for him, the way she felt in his arms when they danced.  
The Cloisters.  
The Doctor breathed in sharply, his eyes flying open, the scanner still directing its treatment at his mind.  
The Cloisters.  
He felt his chest tighten in pain.  
The Cloisters.  
Clara’s face close to his own. The look of absolute devastation in her eyes.  
Four and a half billion years.  
A duty of care.  
And finally, the words she had spoken to him. Always too late. Always bad timing. And the panic that had hit him, he couldn’t make it right, he couldn’t make it work, he couldn’t find a way. He was the Doctor and he couldn’t fix it. He’d done it all so wrong.  
And then it hit him, lying in the scanner as the machine fell quiet and with it the voices of Ashildr and Clara. It hit him then, the hopeless weight of the love he had felt, as he pulled himself free of the machine, as he watched Clara slowly unstrap him from the bed. She was watching him warily, her eyes were wet. He could feel his hands trembling and a weakness spread over his body. He could feel his tears starting, somewhere deep within him where they had been held silent for years. Maybe Ashildr had been right, maybe his initial doubts should have been enough to stop him. Maybe he should have opted for death rather than feel this again.  
Because it felt exactly the same as it always had, and he didn’t think he could bear it, he could feel his hearts breaking already.  
Until she took his hands, squeezed and held them in her own.  
Until he looked into her mind and saw something fragile there that she had protected all this time.  
Until she spoke.  
‘I love you,’ she said, ‘Stay with me.’  
XXXXXXXXXX  
It had taken a lot to calm down a raging Ashildr; she was convinced they had made a mistake, and spoke with the wisdom of millennium about wrong turns and regrets and sleeping dogs who should be left to lie. The Doctor and Clara, she said, had taken the decision together to wipe someone’s memory. It was done, it should have been left done. It was the same old same old, she said, the same problem it had always been. Back then the Doctor would not let go of Clara and now she would not let go of him. Oh things would be fine for a little while, she admitted, new rules would be set in place and sensible decisions made. But they would see, she said quietly.  
One day one of them would come too close, a scrape would be too narrow, and the other would panic, kick against nature, bend all the rules. It was inevitable. She was sorry, she said.  
An understanding was met and they went their separate ways. They dropped Ashildr back on earth at the earliest opportunity. Clara’s Diner was loaned to her for a while, she liked to travel and the Doctor had a TARDIS of his own.  
Clara didn’t want to travel, she’d had plenty of adventures alone or with Ashildr, she said. Now she just wanted time, time with him, time to say the things they never said, time to make sure this time things went right. He was certain she was terrified.  
It took him a little while to recover physically, a lot of rest. Clara would lie next to him in bed and watch him sleep; he’d wake to find her listening to his soft breathing or pressing one hand to his chest to feel his double heartbeat. It fascinated her somehow, the thump, thump inside him when her own heart was still. She said she felt so empty and silent compared to him sometimes. It was different in the day, when he was awake, but at night the silence in her body haunted her. He tried not to sleep much as a result, tried not to leave her alone.  
One morning as he ate breakfast she told him that she needed him to feel alive, that he had two hearts for a reason. She was dead without him. The words were powerful and he wasn’t sure they felt right.  
A week or so after Ashildr’s departure he lay thinking in the dim light of their shared room on the TARDIS. The Doctor as he often did in his sleep had rolled nearer to Clara, closing the gap between their bodies that he always insisted on. He was yet to be fully comfortable with the kind of proximity she offered despite her reassurances. He supposed hundreds of years alone had its effects on his confidence and he remained dressed in nightwear and kept his hands to himself. But he was again, spooned against her back, one arm around her waist and his nose buried into the crook of her neck like they had been made for one another. Clearly their subconscious was trying to tell them something.  
She could feel his heartbeats against her, feel them pulse through to where her own heart lay still. He could feel her entire focus was on that rhythm and she was unaware he was awake. Carefully so as not to disturb him she covered his hand with hers and held it tight, unsure why tears were forming except for the tiny doubt that haunted her now.  
Did we do the right thing?  
Did we do the right thing?  
‘I don’t know,’ he said.  
‘Stop doing that.’  
‘What?’  
‘Mind reading,’ Clara said, ‘It’s creepy.’  
‘I can’t help it,’ he shifted behind her awkwardly, feeling guilty, ‘You’re… well you’re there aren’t you, I’m a touch telepath, it just happens, you know, if my guard is down.’  
Clara sighed and rubbed his hand, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry I don’t mean to snap.’  
He fell silent behind her and that made her feel even worse. Again he wasn’t sure how to respond. She rolled in his arms, ‘Sorry,’ she said again.  
‘You can talk to me,’ he said eventually wondering how best to approach things, ‘about… well… things.’  
‘I don’t want us to talk,’ she said.  
‘That’s… that’s not what I was expecting,’ he admitted. ‘Isn’t that how grown ups sort things out. Endless conversation?’  
‘Sometimes,’ she said flatly. Clara trailed her fingers idly down the front of his T-shirt, sending shivers of feeling through him. ‘Take this off,’ she said suddenly.  
‘I… umm….’  
‘Please,’ she glanced up at him, ‘I don’t want to talk, but I need you, I’ve needed you for so long now. I don’t think talking is going to do anything except complicate things further.’  
‘This will also complicate things, Clara,’ he warned. ‘If you’re about to do what I think you are.’  
‘No,’ she pulled herself up to her knees and lifted her own tank top over her head. ‘No this is the missing piece,’ she said, ‘This is what we skirted round all that time. I need to feel you, I need to be with you. Please.’ Clara bit the inside of her cheek in an attempt not to cry and the Doctor watched as a tiny frown line appeared between her brows. She sat bare except for her underpants, made no attempt to cover her breasts from him. He’d never seen her more vulnerable.  
‘Clara…’ he tried one last time.  
‘Please,’ she reiterated.  
He sat up slowly, pulled his T-shirt over his head leaving him only in his boxers. He glanced down his body somewhat embarrassed.  
‘I’m a bit disappointing in this body,’ he tried to keep his voice reasonably light to disguise his unease. ‘I’m also not entirely sure it works.’  
Clara laughed a little at that though her tearfulness still threatened to spill over. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, her voice choked. Sitting up she reached out one hand to touch his bare skin, let it move over his thin muscle, strayed to touch one of his nipples. He closed his eyes, his mind drifting towards her consciousness. Clara shuffled over on the bed a little, pressed against him and continued her exploration of his pale soft skin, her hands running now over his back and arms with tiny gentle touches.  
‘You’re so beautiful,’ she whispered, her nose coming to nuzzle at his ear. He felt her lips let fall a few soft kisses to his neck and then her hands made their way down , softly stroking over his belly. He could feel her smiling in his mind, but he could also feel overwhelming tenderness. She was slowly adoring him, lips and mind and hands. Her fingers reached the top of his boxers and coaxed under them, encouraging him to lift himself and shuffle back towards the headboard. Before he knew it she had climbed on top of him, straddling his hips.  
The Doctor tipped his head back and Clara slowly dropped more open mouthed kisses onto his waiting lips. She rocked gently against him, the lace of her underwear delightfully rough against his hardening erection. He could feel his own breathing picking up and a delicious burn of arousal coiling low down in his abdomen. He gasped a little helplessly and Clara ground down further onto his hips.  
He looked deep into her mind then, sensing that he had permission, and recognised memories of them together which he had only just remembered himself. But there were other memories too, not those of acts or deeds but those of feelings and emotions, things for which she had yearned. He found himself looking from Clara’s point of view at himself, feeling a little of what she felt when she spoke to him, feeling some of what she had wanted to say. She was as passionate as he was if unaware of the depth her feelings ran to; if she had to rip time apart for him she would have and that knowledge, buried deep in her, controlled everything she did.  
The knowledge made him afraid but equally excited. They were essentially the same being split apart and they could at last reconnect. He had wanted this for so long. The Doctor reached up and tangled his hands in Clara’s hair, let them fall to her breasts. She moaned and he felt her rock harder against him, using his hardness to press firmly into her core. He brought his mouth to her body then, kissing her nipples firmly and then laving them with his tongue, the strangled noise of pleasure she made nearly bringing him early to his conclusion. Suddenly she couldn’t wait, rising to her knees and reaching down to pull her underwear to one side.  
‘Please,’ she pressed her forehead against his, her breath warm against his face. He watched as her fingers slowly massaged herself as she waited for him, the sight pushing him to grip her hips and bring her forward, hold himself in one hand as she pushed down over him.  
Clara settled into his lap and then started a deep needy rhythm, her muscles clamping hard around him and her arms wrapping around his neck. He felt her fingers in his hair, brush over his ears. She mapped out his back and chest, stopped to suck and kiss his neck, while all the time increasing the timing of her thrusts. The arousal was spiralling and he could feel his hearts competing with each other, he wasn’t going to last and he sensed it didn’t matter as the rate of Clara’s movements grew faster. She moaned against him and redoubled her efforts, desperate for some form of relief, the images in her mind becoming more vivid. The Doctor gasped, the explicit scenes playing out in his consciousness. He was close, he had to finish, the tension was becoming painful, his hard flesh aching as she rode him, wet muscles drinking him in with each thrust. Clara dug her nails deep into his back.  
‘Oh God, Oh God,’ she started followed by a low noise of frustration, ‘Mmmm, please.’  
The sound nearly drove him over the edge and he crushed his lips against hers mercilessly, thrusting into her with his tongue as his fingers found their target below. Clara bucked when they touched her and then broke the kiss, her whimpering becoming regular and higher in pitch until suddenly there was release and she drove down hard onto him setting off fireworks behind his eyes as he threw his head back only to be caught in a returning kiss. She came with him, all the way, their bodies melding together thrust by thrust.  
Clara kissed the Doctor as the final waves of orgasm left him and he let his mind drift with hers afterwards, mingled memories and dreams. She kissed him as he softened inside her body and as he held her in his arms. She stayed in his lap as his breathing evened out and his heartbeats returned to normal. He knew she had to pretend one of them was hers.

 


End file.
